


Something Soft and Soaked in Pain

by lemonpie



Series: i stand before the lord [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Abuse, Child Abuse, Childhood Friends, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-17 15:32:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18101342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonpie/pseuds/lemonpie
Summary: Boy was four when he met Abomination for the first time. They sat on opposite sides of a fence and didn't say anything, but something inside of Boy felt loosened. Abomination comes back the next day, Ma and her belt be damned.This is a story of monsters and men and how sometimes men are the monsters and the monsters are just men and how some things are bright and broken and should stay that way. This is a story of a Boy and his Abomination.(This, of course, changes everything.)(a/n: edited 19/03/19)





	Something Soft and Soaked in Pain

**Author's Note:**

> i reread the first chapter and decided that it fucking sucked, so i updated it and made it. suck less. thanks for reading! <3

Boy was four when he met Abomination for the first time. He only knew that was his name because Abomination had told him, a few days after. Abomination looked a lot like Boy but he had brown eyes instead of green and white skin instead of dark and scars all over his hands. They'd sat on opposite sides of Auntie Tunia's fence quietly. 

When Abomination left, Boy found himself wishing he'd come back. And come back he did. 

Abomination didn't say much, but Boy could do the talking for the both of them. There wasn't much that he could find to talk about, but he managed. And when he didn't want to speak, he just stayed quiet. Abomination never seemed to mind.

Days passed that way, with Abomination not saying much at all and Boy finding that his friendship got him through nights in his cupboard, let a warmth spread through him even in winter. And if some days Abomination didn't show up, then Boy didn't mind.

\--

Boy was six the first time he saw Abomination outside of their secret little spot. It was only because Aunt Petunia couldn't find anyone to watch him and had to go to the supermarket. "Hurry up." She snapped as they passed another woman, who was dragging a familiar dark-haired little boy. Abomination smiled a grim little smile as he goes past, and Boy matched it, their eyes meeting for moment.  

It was then that he learned Abomination's real name. "Come along, Credence." Said the woman dragging him, and Abomination stumbled over his feet to catch up.

\--

Boy was six still when he met Abomination next. They were at school, and he'd just learnt that his name was Harry. Someone sat in the seat next to him, where no-one else had dared to sit because of Dudley, and when he turned to tell them off he saw a familiar pair of dark dark eyes. "Boy." Whispered Abomination as a greeting, and Boy-Harry smiled and murmured "Abomination." back and that was all they had time to say to one another. But it was enough.

They sat next to each other every single day, and Dudley and his gang eventually gave up on trying to get Credence to leave Harry alone. They played together in the playground and did their pair work together and the teachers quickly learn not to separate them. 

It was when they were eight that Harry dared to ask, "Why don't we play magic?" and Credence had stilled very carefully. "Magic is for sinners, Harry." He said, whisper-soft the way he always spoke, and Harry frowned. "If you're a sinner, we can't be friends anymore." 

And Harry nodded and they returned to their games. But still, that thought, those words, lingered, and in his cupboard that night, Harry felt the warmth spread even further, get even brighter in his chest. The lock on his cupboard clicked open, and Harry allowed himself to smile. 

Naturally, Harry wanted to share this with his (only) friend as soon as possible, so the next morning while all the other children were running around on the playground before school started, Harry showed his new ability off by locking and unlocking the door to one of the toilet stalls. Credence went pale as he watched, but slowly, surely, he gets as excited about it as Harry. "Do you think I could do that?" He asked hopefully, brown eyes bright, and Harry shrugged. "I don't see why not.”

“Well, how do you know what to do?” Asked Credence, and Harry shrugged again.

Credence shrugged too, then furrowed his eyebrows in focus. The lock snapped and the door was ripped off of it’s hinges. Credence and Harry both startled, and then Harry began to laugh. “Wow! I didn’t know you could do that!”

“Neither did I.” He murmured in response, looking quite worried. He always looked quite worried, Harry had found. It had been funny at first but now it was just a bit upsetting.

Of course, they had to go to class, and they sat next to each other as usual, but Credence was even more subdued than usual, and when they walked home together, he said, “Ma doesn’t like magic. She says it’s a sin.”

Harry said, “Aunt Petunia says magic doesn’t exist. But don’t worry. It can just be our secret, can’t it?”

A beat passed, and Harry’s heart leapt into his throat. And then Credence nodded, smiling warmly, and Harry relaxed.

“We can practice in the playground, behind the bushes. Dudley won’t find us there.” Harry decided, and Credence agreed. They split off from one another after a few minutes to go to their respective homes, and Harry found that the smile couldn’t be wiped from his face all day. No matter how much it made Vernon yell at him.

\--

The next day, they did sit down behind the bushes on the playground and practice. “Okay, I’m going to try and make this leaf float.” Harry told Credence. “You need to tell me when it’s floating.”

Credence took his job very seriously and shifted into a better position to watch, and Harry’s face screwed up in concentration.

For a moment, it seemed as if nothing was going to happen, and then Credence’s voice broke his concentration. “It’s floating! It’s floating!”

Harry cracked open one eye and then opened both of them wide. The leaf was hovering a good few inches over his hand, but his concentration shattered and it fell again. “I- Did you see that too?” He demanded of Credence, who nodded excitedly.

He picked up another leaf and tried it again. Again, he was distracted by an eager “It’s floating again!” from his friend, and he beamed.

They passed the whole breaktime like that, and when lunch time came, since neither of them _had_ any lunch to speak of, they went straight outside and sat behind the bushes again. Credence was still too nervous to try hovering a leaf, but Harry progressed on to rocks and twigs before the day was out.

The day after that, Harry began to throw things at Credence with his magic, and the warmth bloomed and blossomed every time his friend laughed.

Spring bled into Summer, and for the first time Harry was kicked out of his house while Aunt Petunia cooked or cleaned or generally didn’t want him under her feet. He and Credence met at an old play park near their houses, and Harry continued to practice his magic.

It was two weeks into the Summer holiday, when Harry had just turned seven, that Credence finally, _finally_ decided he would try out magic too. They both knew he had the ability, but he’d refused up until that point, citing over and over again that ‘Magic was a sin.’

Like Harry before him, Credence was sat cross-legged, the sound of traffic far-off, with his entire face creased up in concentration. Harry was watching, head propped up on his hand. “I don’t think anything’s happening.” He said after a few minutes – which, to a seven-year-old, was basically a lifetime.

Just as Harry was about to huff and tell Credence to give up, the leaf shot up into the air. Along with all of the other leaves around them, and the twigs and rocks too. All of it leapt upwards, hovering there for a long, terrifying moment. Then, it all came slamming back down, and Harry squeaked and covered his head. Not a single clump of dirt, twig, rock, or leaf touched him at all.

“How did you do that?” Asked Harry, awestruck, looking at Credence. Credence stared back, but instead of brown, his eyes were solid white. “Woah… Cool!”

“I don’t… Know how I did that. I didn’t like it.” Credence told him, wiping his hands on his trousers. Harry shrugged. “Then don’t do it again.”

And that was the end of that.

\--

School started up again, and they had moved up a class. Their new teacher was called Miss Goldstein, and she had pretty blonde hair and a smiling mouth and never, ever called Harry “Boy” or “Freak” and told Dudley off when he was mean to Harry and Credence.

Harry liked her a lot, and sometimes thought that she wouldn’t be mean to him if he ever showed her his magic. Credence dissuaded him, though he never abandoned the thought completely.

She taught them numbers, and how to add them and take them away. Harry found that really easy, but Miss Goldstein never got angry at him for finishing all of his worksheets faster than everybody else. She just gave him an extra one.

(After a few times of her doing that, Credence told her he had finished earlier than the others as well, and she smiled at him and gave him an extra worksheet too.)

After a while, Credence and Harry began to stay inside a little bit extra during break time to help her tidy the room, and she thanked them both with a star-shaped golden sticker each pressed onto their jumpers.

Harry wore his until the stickiness wore off, and then he carefully put it on the small shelf in his cupboard where he looked at it with fondness whenever the cold and dark became too much.

Credence’s was gone the next day, and Harry could see that his palms were covered in fresh blood and his hands were cramping. They’d had a substitute teacher, and Harry did all of Credence’s work for him because he knew from experience how much Credence hated writing when he’d just gotten a punishment.

The days passed quicker with Miss Goldstein. Harry’s control and ability in magic grew and grew. Something dark and ugly grew inside of Credence, too, something that he pushed down and pushed down and kept on pushing until it was almost like he was normal again.

Miss Goldstein sometimes looked concerned at Credence, and at Harry too, although less. She was kind, and warm, and sometimes Harry let himself fantasise that she took him away from the Dursleys and let him live with her. It was nothing more than that, a fantasy, but it got him through the winter and into spring. He and Credence continued to sit behind their bushes, and practice magic. Sometimes, rarely, Credence could be convinced to try something, but it usually ended with something exploding, or going wrong, or on one occasion, the bushes getting caught on fire. They managed to put it out, luckily, but it made Credence all the more reluctant to try again.

Summer came again, and much like the year before, they spent nearly every day together in that park. They were both eight, now, and like any eight-year-old boys would, they whiled the days away by playing make-believe games and running around and generally making a ruckus. In their games, they were pirates, or superheroes, or knights, or anything else their minds could conjure up to be. In their games, there were no cupboards or belts. They weren’t going to get hurt, or locked away. In their games, there was safety, and comfort.

But sometimes, they didn’t play games. Instead, they sat, and practised more magic.

One day, in late August, Credence had exploded another twig, and Harry was watching him, considering. “Have you tried asking it to do what you want it to do?” He asked abruptly.

“What?”

“Well, I only mean… You’re trying to make it do what you want, right? And that’s what works for me. But maybe your magic wants you to be polite to it.”

If Credence were older, he’d have dismissed the notion entirely, but since he wasn’t, and since he trusted every word Harry said, he breathed out and nodded.

“Please can you help me lift this stick? Without making it explode?” He said out loud, eyes shut.

And slowly, the stick lifted from his palm and into the air. And didn’t blow up. Harry beamed, and Credence smiled too. From there, things became much easier, and Credence was soon able to do all the things Harry could do, and some stuff besides.

September came, and with it came Year Four. They didn’t have Miss Goldstein that year, and their new teacher made Harry upset, because he shouted a lot. He shouted at everyone who he thought was disturbing his class, and Harry quickly learned to never, ever put his hand up.

Then Year Five, with a teacher who seemed good enough but didn’t seem to care very much about her job, and Harry learnt not to put his hand up in her class either. Their skills at magic improved, and soon they were playing catch from across the entire park, propelling sticks and rocks at each other with increasing speed, weaving them through the air and laughing at one another whenever they were hit.

The summer after Year Six, though, showed a very strange development for both of them.

They both received a letter. A letter that had their exact addresses on it. This time, Harry was smart enough to hide it from his family before they could take it away, and ran from the house as soon as he was able. Credence was already waiting for him, a similar envelope clasped in his pale hands. Hope peaked in Harry and he leapt the fence as usual, his own hand curled around the edge of his own letter.

“What the hell is a Hogwarts?” and “A magic school? Ma would never let me go to one of those!” both spilled out of them at the same time, and they looked at each other and laughed.

“You could always… Ask your magic, to… You know…” Harry paused. “Throw her off of a building, or something.”

Credence stared at him. “That… Isn’t a bad idea.” He mused, sitting down with his letter. “She’s so scared of magic. It would be kind of funny if it’s what killed her.”

Harry worried about Credence sometimes.

The letters were soon forgotten in favour of their new game – space pirates. They didn’t return home until the sun was dipping below the horizon and they were both absolutely exhausted.

The next day, Credence didn’t turn up to the park. Harry sat and waited there for hours, the entire day actually, and went home with a heavy heart and worry furrowing his eyebrows.

For three days, Harry waited alone in that park, until Credence appeared, finally, face paler than ever and back soaked in blood. “She’s dead.” Were the only two words he said, and then fell quiet.

It was a profound quiet, one that had Harry worried, but he simply cleaned Credence up as best he could and didn’t ask any questions.

On the news that night, it was revealed that Mary-Lou Barebone had died in a gas explosion. It was never mentioned that her church didn’t have a gas stove, or any form of heating. People saw what they wanted to, and the matter was left there. Harry knew better.


End file.
